Stop Shopping Cart Abandonment Now - Building trust in new and repeat customers
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As an online business, lacking the face to face advantages offered to brick and mortar companies, it’s essential for the e-commerce business to develop trust in the retailer and customer relationship.
Always make certain that company contact information is readily available, by phone, fax, e-mail, and the postal service. Strong customer service and quick response to questions and concerns will help to ensure current and future sales. Contact information should be clearly marked on every checkout page.
A good idea is to not hide unpleasantries. Be upfront about any additional shipping and handling charges very early in the buying experience. Customers want to know the total purchase price in advance, and will not appreciate an unpleasant surprise near the end of the process. Few things contribute as much to high abandonment rates as failure to inform the customer of additional charges.
Provide a reasonable time for the customer to expect delivery, and beat that date by as much time as possible. The customer will appreciate the unexpected early delivery. The methods of shipment should be clearly marked, along with the charges, right on the order form. Offer more than one means of shipment, as many people have distinct preferences.
If billing and shipping addresses are the same, provide a check box to save the customer from providing the same information twice. The gesture will be appreciated. If any information is missing, provide a useful and easy to follow return page that asks for a specific piece of information. Don’t make the buyer fill out an entire form all over again.
If one of your products is temporarily out of stock, be certain to inform the potential purchaser of that fact. If possible, provide a date when the product will return to the sales inventory. As with shipping, providing expected times enhances sales.
Along with the usual credit card payments, offer customers the choice of PayPal, checks, or money orders. Debit card payments are also becoming popular for online purchases. Don’t limit your customers. Help them to buy from you.
Offer a guarantee. If a customer is not satisfied, offer to accept a return of the merchandise and provide a full refund. Offering a “lowest price guarantee” is another option. While a few people will attempt to cheat your system, the vastly increased number of sales, directly resulting from the guarantee, will more than offset that small loss.
Offer an exit survey to customers who still choose to abandon your shopping cart. The feedback and reasons for the abandonment, provided by the dissatisfied customers, will help to improve the system.
Test the system for usability. Bring in several people to test the checkout procedure. Have them go through a product buy for you, and keep careful notes of their steps. Their actions and choices might be entirely different from what was envisioned in the design. Test and retest changes until the shopping cart checkout system is operating smoothly; and then test some more.
Conclusion
Shopping cart abandonment is a widespread problem, faced by many e-commerce companies.
By closely examining your checkout procedures, and making changes where needed, you can vastly improve your sales completion percentage.
Don’t let shopping cart abandonment happen to you, and your Internet business.
Stop shopping cart abandonment today.
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